Create a simple broadcast group

As part of an emergency preparedness program, we want to be able to send notifications to all employees based on the West Coast of the United States in the event that a natural disaster affects the area.

We want send notifications to all group members immediately and regardless of how other members respond to the notification. To do this, we use a single 24x7 shift that is always active and contains all group members. Additionally, we will configure this group so that it does not send duplicate notifications to members who belong to the group more than once (possibly through membership in multiple child groups or dynamic teams).

To ensure that this group stays current as more users are added to xMatters, we'll use dynamic teams to populate the group membership. Dynamic teams are automatically generated to include members that match specified criteria. In this case, we'll add dynamic teams that select recipients based on their site. This ensures that new xMatters users will be included in the group as long as they are assigned to an appropriate site.

We will restrict who can access and notify this group so that low-permission users cannot send notifications to this group and that only certain high-permission users have permission to modify it.

In the name area of the Add Group dialog, type the group name, "West Coast Employees".

In the description area of the Add Group dialog, type "Employees based in our Washington, Oregon, and California offices".

In the members area, click the All drop-down list and select Dynamic Teams.

Click in the recipient text area and begin typing the name of a dynamic team you want to add. In this example, begin typing "Washington". When "Washington Employees" is displayed, click its name to add it to the members list.

Repeat the previous step or the remaining dynamic teams, groups, users or devices you want to add to the group. In this example, add the dynamic teams "Oregon Employees" and "California Employees".

Click Add Group. The group's Overview tab is displayed.

To change who has permission to modify this group, click the Edit link next to Supervisors.

In the Group Supervisors dialog, add other users who will have permission to modify the group. In this example, add Mary McBride as a group supervisor.

Click Save Changes.

To change who has permission to view and send notifications to the group, click the Edit link next to Observers.

Select the roles that have permission to view and notify this group. In this example, deselect Observed By All and then select Group Supervisor.

Click Save.

In the Advanced Options area, set the following options:

Clear the Allow Duplicates flag so members do not receive more than one notification in the event that they are included in the group multiple times.

Check the Use Failsafe Devices flag so that xMatters may notify a user's failsafe devices when they do not have any other active devices.

Set Site to Use for Holidays to None. This prevents the group from becoming inactive on holidays.

Form designers may want to consider the following tips when creating forms to use with broadcast groups.

Choose response actions (such as "Record Response") that do not cause xMatters to terminate the event. If a recipient responds to a notification using a response action such as "End" or "Stop Notifying Target" the response from one recipient could end the event before the remaining recipients are notified. For more information about response options, see Define response options.

Include a Handling section that allows a message sender to configure options that you may want to use in an emergency situation, such as the ability to notify all group members' devices regardless of their active timeframes. For more information about working with the Handling section, see Configure handling options.

Consider adding a subscription form to your communication plan so that users who are not directly targeted by a notification are notified when an event is created with the form. For more information about subscriptions, see Subscription forms.

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